McLaughlin gifts Chevy a historic 250th IndyCar pole
The Team Penske driver edged five-time champion Alex Palou by just 0.0177 seconds, with Chevrolet's hats already boxed and waiting at Laguna Seca.
Scott McLaughlin put his No. 3 DEX Team Penske Chevrolet on pole for the Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey on Saturday at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, his 1m09.136s lap around the 2.238-mile, 11-turn road course earning Chevrolet its 250th pole position in the IndyCar Series and upstaging newly crowned champion Alex Palou, who had led into the Fast Six. Chevrolet had boxes of celebratory hats pre-packed for the occasion. McLaughlin gave them a reason to open them.
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Palou led. Then McLaughlin happened.
McLaughlin bested the five-time series champion by just 0.0177 seconds. That is a margin barely visible on a stopwatch but enormous in what it means. Palou’s 1m09.154s and Indy 500 winner Felix Rosenqvist’s 1m09.193s rounded out the top three. Rosenqvist, racing at Laguna Seca for the final time as a Meyer Shank Racing driver, had enough pace to threaten but not enough to take the headline.
McLaughlin was unambiguous about where the credit belongs. “It was pretty solid,” he said of his final flying lap. “It wasn’t my best lap, but it was good enough for pole. The last couple of days, the car has had really good speed, just almost effortless speed.” He was equally blunt about the mission that remains: “Long race tomorrow for the Dex Chevy. That’s 250 poles for Team Chevy, so I’m really proud for them.”
The journey to 250 started with the late Jim Hurtubise in 1963 using Chevy Corvette power at the dirt Langhorne Speedway, and hit the landmark with McLaughlin, who had also earned pole No. 249 the previous weekend in Milwaukee. He is the man who delivered both ends of that particular chapter. “Proud for Chevrolet. That’s fantastic,” he said. “To be the guy that’s won 249 and 250 as well.”
36 races without a win, and now a front-row seat to fix it
McLaughlin hopes the speed will help him end a 36-race dry spell since his last IndyCar victory in August 2024 at the Milwaukee Mile. That is a long drought for a driver of his calibre at a team of Penske’s standard. The pole is not a guarantee, but the statistics at this circuit are not discouraging. The pole-sitter has driven to victory in this race in 18 of the 28 IndyCar races held at Laguna Seca.
What is easy to overlook in the noise around Chevrolet’s milestone is that this was McLaughlin’s third pole of the 2026 season, following St Petersburg and Milwaukee, and his first on a road course since Barber in April 2024. He has been competitive across ovals all year. Getting back to pole pace on a technical road course, against a champion-calibre field, suggests something has genuinely clicked.
Christian Lundgaard qualified fifth at 1:10.2227, but will line up 11th on Sunday due to a six-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change after the doubleheader last weekend at Milwaukee. Alexander Rossi put together his best road course starting position of the season with fourth in the No. 20 ECR Chevrolet.
Rosenqvist and Schumacher set the tone in final practice
Before qualifying rewrote the narrative, the morning’s final practice session belonged to Felix Rosenqvist. The Meyer Shank Racing driver was the quickest man on track, turning in a 1m10.427s lap in his Nickelback-liveried No. 60 SiriusXM Honda to top the timesheets. It was a statement session for a driver closing out his time with that team in style.
You can follow our earlier coverage of Rosenqvist’s session-topping run and the full practice picture in our Laguna Seca practice report.
Schumacher led his group until a mistake at the Corkscrew
Mick Schumacher ended the last practice of his rookie season second fastest in practice at 1m10.705s, ahead of McLaughlin’s 1m10.835s in third. He carried that momentum into qualifying. The RLL rookie held the top spot in his qualifying group inside the final two minutes, but a self-admitted mistake at the Zanardi Corkscrew cost him enough time to drop to eighth in the group, and with it any chance of advancing. A run at the Fast Six for Schumacher, undone at the Corkscrew of all places, would have been quite a story.
He starts 15th, one place behind Will Power. The 95-lap Grand Prix of Monterey is the 18th and final round of the 2026 IndyCar season. Everything is still to play for in the battle behind Palou in the standings, with Lundgaard, Kyle Kirkwood of Andretti Global, Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren and David Malukas locked in a four-driver fight for second place in the championship.
Follow the full 2026 IndyCar standings and race results on our IndyCar coverage hub.
